Radio Skyline, Episode 10 (Patreon)

This episode is based on an NPR segment I heard about Elon Musk trying to bring pretty much exactly this idea to the midwest - no exaggeration. The reps discussing the project refused to acknowledge that anything at all could go wrong with it, whether fires or simply competition from a train, they would not admit that ANYTHING was wrong or inferior about this concept, and the interviewer just kept patiently rephrasing the exact same questions over to see if they'd ever say what happens if the tube catches fire.

While you could regard this as an insane man pursuing an insane idea, the general "control the narrative" approach is super common with tech companies because they normally have such an easy time doing it. Few people truly understand algorithmic promotion, or what it means to be harvesting your data, or launching space shuttles, but an infrastructure project is some old school business and it seemed especially hard for these people to bluff their way through it.